Blog posts

I’ve resisted posting much here about the recent London bombings or their aftermath. There’ve been plenty of offline conversations, but I’ve been wanting to let some of the dust settle before writing on the subject. We were glad to hear that none of our friends or family in the city were hurt, and glad of the ease of communication that brought that news. Unfortunately, Tony Blair’s statements, reported in the Observer yesterday, implying that changing British foreign policy is not an appropriate response to the attacks seem remarkably superficial. British foreign policy was changed sharply in the wake of the twin-towers attacks (in that case, towards war with Iraq) and it is entirely right and proper that it should be reassessed. ...

While on the East Coast last month we visited Rhode Island for a wedding. That tiny state was a great setting for the nuptials, but I didn’t get much indication at the time that—when it comes to giving its residents access to key information—it is one of the most innovative. Shortly after we returned, I spotted this piece on Jeff Barr’s blog which I’m only just getting to. He eulogises about the clarity with which Rhode Island’s state government have grasped the vision of the “remixable” Web 2.0 concept, and their recent efforts to embrace those technologies: providing their citizens with tools and data about government in a format they can actually use. ...

Skimming through my newsreader I’ve been coming across numerous reports of people mistakenly being sold copies of the latest Harry Potter book. In this story refers to one child returning the copy he was accidentally sold on Monday. Should we feel bad that amazon delivered ours earlier today and that we’ve already been indulging? Tags: Harry Potter | Amazon

No sooner is the ink dry on the G8 communiques than leaks begin to appear suggesting that the debt cancellation deal announced by the finance ministers is under threat. The BBC are reporting that a memo has been leaked to the Jubilee Debt Campaign (as yet there is no news on the JDC website) indicating that the Belgian government is likely to try to block the agreement when it comes before the IMF’s board. ...

Sometimes I can’t stop myself from banging my head against brick walls. Today’s impact was a response to this piece in the Florida Baptist Witness: Dear Sir, My wife passed me a link to the page on your website carrying an article about whether Southern Baptists should support the One campaign. Having read the article, I felt compelled to respond due to a number of inaccuracies it contained, as well as the presentation of a particular brand of economic thought as though it were beyond dispute. ...

Demian Turner’s review reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write a recommendation for Matt Zandstra’s " PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice" for a few weeks now. While many of the ‘design patterns’ books I’ve read have been able to impart their core concepts, none has really worked for me in the way Matt’s did. In part that’s because it is the first one I’ve read that’s exclusively PHP-focussed. While I enjoy python more than PHP, PHP tends to be the language I default to due to its familiarity. Matt draws from the example of other languages, but clearly identifies what marks PHP out as a language and applies his techniques appropriately. ...

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, and I’m unlikely to return to regular posting for a while, but there are a few things that deserve some attention. Unfortunately my work schedule and a few more urgent voluntary projects have pulled me away from working on the Atom/RSS parser I wrote about recently, but I have done a little tinkering and hope to return to it before long. The next big change will be pulling each feed type out into its own class to make the package more easily extensible, and at that point I hope to propose it for inclusion in PEAR. ...

As a few entries in the run-up to the G8 summit hinted, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately considering the place of pragmatism in campaigning. Any campaign that seeks to make a quick impact is almost certain to have to make major compromises in order to get attention and drive action without the time to affect a fundamental change in mindsets. In the case of the Make Poverty History and One campaigns those compromises have been front-and-center. From the outset Make Poverty History was accused of being too close to Blair’s government, a closeness that has allowed them to be deeply involved in the discussions leading up to this year’s G8 summit, but which necessitates a muted agenda. ...

Obviously attention has been elsewhere most of the day, but in between London-related blog postings I’ve been reading AfricaVox, a group blog bringing together a number of African journalists who are in the UK for the G8 summit. So far it’s a little light on analysis, but even the slightly different perspective is useful while trying to work out what to make of the summit’s proceedings.

Sufjan Steven’s second installment in his ‘states’ series of albums, Illinoise, was supposed to be released today, but unfortunately due to some legal complications it’s been delayed until they can produce new sleeve art. But never fear! Independent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs, which, much like their own work, are filled with stories of places and people. So, they introduced Stevens to the Arkansas town of Brinkley. ...